Riot Keeps LoL Replay Access With 10-Per-Hour Cap

Riot Games will limit League of Legends replay downloads to 10 per hour while allowing players to continue accessing matches played by friends and other users. The revised policy follows criticism of an earlier plan that would have restricted downloads to games in which a player participated.

Riot announced the change Tuesday, Oct. 20, in the notes for Patch 26.21. The patch is scheduled for release Oct. 21, and the download limit will take effect at an unspecified time during the patch.

Players will still be able to download replays of their own matches and games played by other League of Legends users. Riot wrote that the cap is intended to prevent automated applications from collecting large numbers of replay files while preserving access for legitimate uses.

“This change is necessary to prevent large-scale abuse of downloaded replays by bad actors using vibecoded apps to scrape thousands upon thousands of replays,” Riot wrote in the patch notes.

The developer chose a time-based limit so content creators, coaches and analysts can continue using replays for videos, training and match analysis. Riot will monitor download activity to assess whether the 10-per-hour limit balances access with abuse prevention.

The policy replaces a proposal announced Oct. 6 that would have allowed players to download replays only from matches they had played in. That restriction was scheduled to begin with Patch 26.20.

Players, coaches, analysts and content creators criticized the proposal because they use matches involving high-ranked and professional players for education and analysis. Riot postponed the restriction to Patch 26.21 on Oct. 7 while it considered an alternative. Under the revised policy, downloads of other players’ matches will remain available, although they will no longer be unrestricted.

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